


Thank your bucky stars

by merengue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (yes the one in Wakanda), M/M, Post Civil War, Pre Bucky's Scene In The Credits of Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 07:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merengue/pseuds/merengue
Summary: You know, Buck, I wish the stars looked as bright here in Berlin as they did when we were back in Siberia.





	Thank your bucky stars

Berlin is cold this time of the year. Hot chocolate is sold at every corner, snow becoming as common as dust, painting the streets grey and alabaster. The city trembles while no one stares: the buildings tremble, all the trees and their phantom leaves, the bodies tremble beneath every thick coat. Steve would too, but it's been long since he has ever felt cold in such a way, since his bones have ached and little needles have punctured his skin until it went blue and numb.

His best bet would be the ice. Seventy years buried in it could do that to you.

The door knob is broken and he spends no time trying to fight it just to get inside. Taking hold of a branch, he swings his body until everything is air and empty space, time itself suspended, and suddenly his bare hands are gripping the ledge of that dirty window in what he can never remember if it's the second or third floor. The wood creaks beneath his fingers, threatening with crumbling into dust. He jumps inside and finds himself completely drenched in shadows.

"I brought this for you".

Steve throws the plastic cup into the air, watching it fly across the room and dangerously tip towards the right before he stops looking altogether. He walks across the kitchen, taking off his coat in the process, dusting it off and flooding the wooden boards with tiny droplets of melted ice.

The sound of the hot liquid splashing against the floor never comes, but then again Steve would laugh for a year straight if it actually had.

"Thanks".

Bucky's voice always sounds specially quiet after the sun sets, as if every shadow fed on him as soon as the sky turns dark. 

It's been only ten days since Siberia and the world already feels muted, soft at the edges, almost on the verge of dissolving. The news are constantly flashing with images of them, images of the wrecked airport they left behind, horror and destruction that speaks volumes even though they haven't even opened their mouths. The good and the bad and the awful all brought to light. He knows this because he goes out sometimes, stares at the screens while trying to hide at the same time, listening to the conversations that pepper the German streets like small satellites. The apartment has no television, the only piece of technology being a radio in which he listens to jazz whenever he has the chance. He's lucky to have a functioning lightbulb which only fails to light up about half of the time.

Bucky is already leaning against the wall when he turns around, watching him from behind the lid of the cup. 

"Any news from the outside world?"

"Well, let me see. We're still fugitives, the world wants us dead or behind bars and we're literally the scum of the Earth, but we're still getting some praise because we happen to wear fancy suits. Same as always, I'd say".

A grin paints Bucky's face, giant and unapologetic. Steve has to refrain himself in order not to smile back, not sure if he manages at all, not sure if he even cares.

"Good".

Steve can perfectly pinpoint the instant in which the moment comes undone, like glass or snowfall. Bucky's smile completely disappears and a frown takes over his face instead, diluting any trace of laughter. He lets his back slide against the wall until his body hits the floor with a thud, his only hand cradding the length of his legs. 

Steve sits next to him before he can begin to talk himself out of it, letting his head rest against the roughness of the wall as well, opening his mouth without even knowing exactly what he's going to say.

"You know, for a moment there I thought you weren't coming back".

They haven't really spoken about it, the giant elephant in the room that romps around like fussy children. He remembers few things from that night, battered and bloody, the shield aching like a phantom limb would. He wonders if Bucky's missing arm feels just like the loss of his shield does, all metal and all flesh at the same time.

“Yeah”. A slight pause, so small Steve almost can't hear it. “For a moment there I thought so too”.

It's only one meter, Steve thinks. One small, insignificant meter. And yet. Steve stares at the empty distance that separates him from his old best friend and can't help but think about the amount of pain and broken things that such a tiny amount of space can hold inside.

“So, how was Bucarest? We never got to talk about that”.

The dim light of the moon filters through the curtains like liquid silver, casting an iridiscent glow over the little furniture they have: small fireflies that die as soon as they are born. Bucky shakes just like a caged animal would, all anxiety and trembling fingers.

His feet stop tapping against the floor, sudden, quiet in the middle of the room. Steve looks at him, wondering, but sadness pools in his eyes like tar when he stares at him and just like that he suddenly has no voice.

"Bucarest? Full of people. Colorful, in a way". Bucky's voice goes down an octave and Steve struggles to hear the rest. “Cold. Colder than this”. A pause, a smile as sad as rain. "Not colder than Siberia, though".

"The only good thing about Siberia was having the rest of the world far away for a while. And the stars. New York never let us see them back then". He turns his head slightly, catching sight of Bucky's profile against the darkness of the room, all hard angles and chiaroscuro. "Was it lonely, Bucarest?"

It's a stupid question, but some part of his head can't help but imagine Bucky all alone in a dirty room, drowning in his own dark thoughts, and  _care_.

"It was peaceful", he mutters, quietly. "I'm never lonely".

"You are human, Buck. You have feelings".

Bucky laughs, a bark that sounds more like a whine than anything else, and the sound cuts Steve's skin like a knife.

"Not anymore", he says, eyes lost somewhere no one else can reach.

"You don't get to decide whether or not you experience feelings, Bucky. You just do".

Somehow Steve knows exactly what's coming next.

"I wasn't referring to the _feelings_ part".

The words light something inside Steve, a flame that licks and burns and won't stay quiet. They've taken everything from them and tore it to pieces, puppets and soldiers and players in a game they were never meant to play in the first place. He's not letting anybody take anything else away.

"Listen to me, you are still you. They don't control you".

"But they do". His voice sounds so bitter that Steve flinches for an instant, only to react like a slingshot and immediately fight back.

"Bucky–"

He doesn't stop. Suddenly they're looking each other in the eye, and Bucky burns so bright, so red and tired, that Steve fears for a moment the air itself might catch fire.

"They're in my head, Steve. Every single day, from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. Like a disease, it poisons everything", his voice trembles the more he speaks, collapsing on itself. "I've done terrible things because of this, this– _monster_ they put inside me, and now I am the monster. And nothing will fix that".

The words spark a million thoughts that run through his head like deer, like an stampede that tramples everything it encounters on the way. He tries to shut them all out but they hit like a train: Bucky tied to a chair, electrified, his mind so far away Asgard feels a block away in comparison. Bucky trying to kill and killing and hunting anything and everything like a trained animal would, torture and death drowning everything until the winter soldier was the only thing that could come out. 

"You are not what HYDRA did to you. They are the monsters". He lets his hand slide across his knee, his voice urgent. Bucky flinches but doesn't move, doesn't react at all. "You were the boy from Brooklyn who just wanted to do some good in the world and happened to come across their way".

In the blink of an eye, Bucky is standing up and the world is upside down, and Steve can't help but feel he's drowning.

"Steve, I didn't come here to fight with you. I've only come to say goodbye".

It's sudden, instinctive, like the way his reflexes jump in in the middle of a fight. He stands up as well, meeting him until they are only a breath away, his body as wired and designed to fight as it is wired to answer to Bucky without a second thought.

"I'm not going to let you".

"You can't save me, not from this. Not from myself".

Bucky turns his head, hiding behind a smile that shines colder than Berlin, and Steve feels like vibranium shrapnel is trying to claw its way into his heart.

"Then we will die trying. Together". He can't even recognize his own voice while he grabs Bucky's hand, looking him directly in the eye. "Just like it should've happened the first time".

And just like that he can suddenly see it, clear as day, as water from a pond hours after the first rain in centuries. He closes his eyes and can see the thirties roaring again, the craziness of jazz, the dancing, the smoke that clouded the ballrooms that smelled so deeply of liquor it seemed the most precious perfume of all. He can see all the people again, laughing, drinking, loving, and suddenly he sees them all dying the most horrible deaths. Screaming, writhing in pain, bullets like rain puncturing the flesh as if it were melted butter. Blood washes every corner of his mind and nothing can stop the images from coming: lifeless bodies, screams so loud they could penetrate skin, Red Skull, the plane and the ice and that dance for which he will always be late, no matter how long he gets to live this second time. He remembers resurrection like a cascade of shocks penetrating every crevasse, every organ; then war. Always war. A soldier again, the same job, seventy years later, in a world where everything had changed, technology taking the world by storm, while at the same time human nature stayed ugly and beautiful and true.

He remembers life, both before and after, head underwater and submerged, thousands of liters of invisible water drowning his every thought. Life and death and amidst all of the chaos, in a tiny corner, untouched by the passing of time. Bucky. 

Steve thinks of it and marvels at the weirdness of it all, because nothing has changed more than they have. Battered, beaten to a pulp, until there was almost nothing there to bring back at all. Parallel universes, always the key pawn in someone else's master plan. There should be nothing left of that past in which music and drinks lit the world on fire, in which they traded secrets from each of their side of the bed when the lights went out, but there is. Everything's left, and if they wake up the next day just to find Stark has declared war upon them, or that half the world wants them behind bars, at least nothing can take tonight away from them.

He watches Bucky's eyes burn blue, sizzling, and he wonders how many times they must have gone dark only to emerge, each and every time, burning brighter than ever. Never ready to give up the fight, and somehow the thought brings him back to that dirty alley, fists prepared, lips bloody and bruised.

Steve has never been one to give up the fight, either.

"I'm with you, Buck", the skin of his cheek is warm under his fingers, almost melted. Winter's coming to an end.  _It has to_. "Till the end of the line".

Bucky's smile is bittersweet, filled with the weight of years past, catching his hand while kissing it one, two, three times before he closes his eyes slowly, breathing out a sigh that could perfectly contain another seventy years inside. Steve thinks that as long as those years led him back to Bucky again, no matter how long it took, he would live them all again a thousand times.

The ghost of a kiss shocks him out of his own head, a brush of warm lips against his cheek, making his blood sing electric and alive.

"I think it's my turn to be the frozen guy for a little while, Cap".


End file.
